He never demanded for adulation or mainstream fame, but quintessential character actor and celluloid veteran Ronnie Lazaro—with his poignant performances and prodigious filmography—is widely regarded to be one of the finest actors of his generation. Lourd De Veyra re-examines the career of a seasoned thespian, and discovers why the self-revelatory aspects of his craft will never stop moving him.

Ronnie Lazaro as shot by Juan Caguicla

Hunger. Ronnie Lazaro believes hunger promotes emotional strength. Which is why whenever his nine-year-old son Gabriel moans of a grumbling stomach, Ronnie simply brushes it off, in spite of the panicking yayas and mom. The actor, too, uses it as a strategy, in a very literal sense. “I never eat before a heavy dramatic scene,” he says. “You become more conscious. Your faculties become more sensitive.”

There is something about the technique that works. The great religions of the world, after all, advocate fasting as a method for physical and spiritual cleansing. And it is usually manifested in the eyes, which can be considered Ronnie Lazaro’s most powerful virtue as an actor. Those are eyes of strange, uneasy, existential depth, a hunger that transcends the physical. Enigma and pathos. When deployed, these eyes become watery, tragic, exhausted, tormented, piercing, ecstatic, saintly. Eyes that have seen something either so horrible or something so unspeakably beautiful. “Parang laging naiiyak,” as one friend put it, comparable to those of Renee Maria Falconetti’s in the silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc, like “there was a soul behind that facade” as the director Carl Theodore Dreyer once remarked. But it would be unfair to attribute poignancy of eyes to a simple matter of calculated starvation, although one does see that effect in a fasting Victory Chapel member faced with a hot double cheeseburger.

When the history of Philippine cinema is written, Ronnie Lazaro will no doubt rank as one of the finest actors of his generation. But, that is if—and it should be a big IF—said historian would only look beyond mainstream star billings and the occasionally dubious lists of award-giving bodies. And if said historian would ignore equating acting trophies with excellence. In the mainstream film trade, best-actor trophies are usually reserved for leading men, which Ronnie hardly is, at least in the conventional pretty-boy sense of the word. He belongs to that small, elite group, usually employed in teleseryes and big-festival movies as a sort of powerhouse backup for an otherwise crappy lead cast of clueless-teen-idols-of-the-moment. The names are familiar and respected: Joel Torre, Pen Medina, the late Rey Ventura, Soliman Cruz, Nonie Buencamino, Irma Adlawan, John Arcilla, Bodjie Pascua, Nanding Josef, Crispin Pineda, Jaime Fabregas, etc. When they’re not suffering fathers, they’re sympathetic uncles, avuncular neighbors, wizened friends, the weird acquaintance, or some other oppressed relation. In short, underrated acting assignments that any seasoned stage actor should find a walk in the park. But they’re usually the only ones preventing a mainstream project—be it a schmaltzy soap or a “fantaserye”—from completely colliding into the tragic iceberg of awfulness, a fact not altogether lost to producers and directors.

“I’m an actor. Period,” he says. For him—and perhaps for anyone who considers acting a craft—there are no small roles. An infuriating cliche, of course, but one that gains further significance in the case of Ronnie Lazaro, who shuffles between the showbiz mainstream and the world of independent cinema and theater—and sees no reason why either one has to be shortchanged. “Whether you’re acting for Lav Diaz or Jerry Sineneng, you give it your all.”

He was finally able to appear in a Bernal opus . . . He vividly remembers that shoot in 1980: It was the day Mark Chapman shot John Lennon. “It was so easy to cry.“

Appropriately, in the course of our conversation at Grappa’s in Greenbelt, the name “Raoul Aragon” comes up. Ronnie is quick to comment, sans mockery: “Putsa, pare, Raoul Aragon—‘yan ang idol! Wala yang ginawang pangit na trabaho!” He is right. Aragon is the 70s-80s quintessential character actor who starred in many movies, from the classics (Brocka’s Ina, Kapatid, Anak, Angela Markado, Bayan Ko; and Elwood Perez’s Waikiki—hey, you liked Gosengfiao’s Temptation Island) to the downright trashy (Shame, with Claudia Zobel, Hubad na Gubat, Sariwa). Because of his distinctive moustache and eyebrows, Aragon usually played villain roles, which he, however, lent with convincing degrees of moral ambivalence. In short: human.

There is, however, nothing villainous about Ronnie Lazaro’s demeanor. If anything, it is quite the opposite. He looks like a Catholic saint who has gone through grievous bodily punishment like reverse crucifixion or being burned at the stake. Not quite the Biblical Lazarus who resurrects from the dead in the 11th chapter of John, but more like the Lazarus of Luke, the poor man who eats the bits of food falling from the rich man’s table, whose sores are licked by dogs. In equal parts he can also play the earthy, sensual pagan frolicking in sylvan environs. But there seems to be one massive conspiracy between the mainstream and independent scenes to perpetually assign Ronnie Lazaro these roles and variations thereof: poor, oppressed peasant farmer (or fisherman, laborer, you get the drift) and taong grasa. The wretched of the earth. You will see lots of him in Lav Diaz’s 10-hour epic, Heremias, where he navigates the vast stretches of silence and motionlessness. The camera only proves that Ronnie has a face you can contemplate on. Conversely, it is a contemplative face. He can hold still for minutes and sustain a given mood, perfect for the kind of stasis Lav Diaz’s cinema demands. It is a face—and perhaps you can say “aura”—that elicits only the sort of pathos and gravitas ambitioned by such films. F. Sionil Jose once said that anyone who uses the phrase “human condition” should be shot, but this is one actor whose solitary demeanor evokes exactly that—the human condition, whatever it means—and all its weighty attachments.
Which is why independent cinema adores him. “Nagiging art agad, eh,” says noted music video director RA Rivera of the Lazaro effect on any film project. Rivera speaks of “Ronnie Lazaro” as a verb. Rivera’s actor Ramon Bautista understands the instruction “I-Ronnie Lazaro mo!” It means to act with despair and misery in Dostoevskyian degrees.

I’ve also heard some people remark on his resemblance to Christopher Walken, probably because of the eyebags. One cab driver mistook him for the character actor Roldan Aquino. Once, Ronnie flippantly signed “Romy Diaz” for an autograph-seeker who did not know his name. And there are many. I remember one weekend walking with him across Malate, hearing a Babel of comments from onlookers: “Uy, artista o,” or “Hoy, kelan shooting?!” The natural tendency of the majority of Pinoys is to call an actor by the name of the character in a popular soap opera (As of this writing, he is known as “Bernardo” from Natutulog Pa Ang Diyos, an ABS-CBN series adaptation of the Lino Brocka movie. Bernardo, of course, would be shot, his death a high dramatic point of the show). The most common remark he gets from people seeing him for the first time: “Ay, ang bata mo pa pala.”

We asked in jest if Ronnie had ever played a character that is not oppressed, exploited, impoverished, deranged, fearful, old, or agrarian. And he, with all seriousness, shrugged his shoulders and smiled, searching his memory for at least one example. The comedian Tado remarked, “Siguro, ang dami mo nang koleksiyon ng camisa chino!” referring to the archetypal uniform of the countryside farmer, or at least how it is portrayed in popular culture.
There is, actually. In Raymond Red’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning short, Anino, he plays a photographer—although the prevalently ambiguous and bleak tone of the film required him to go patently destitute “Ronnie-Lazaro” for the duration. “The hardest part was slapping Eddie Garcia,” he says. “Nag-take two pa kami. Sabi niya (imitating Eddie Garcia sotto voce) ‘Mahina.’”

There is, however, nothing villainous about Ronnie Lazaro’s demeanor. If anything, it is quite the opposite. He looks like a Catholic saint who has gone through grievous bodily punishment like reverse crucifixion or being burned at the stake.

Ronnie Lazaro is the eldest of four children, and the only son. You can say that cinema runs in the Lazaro blood. In fact, you can say Ronnie was raised by cinema. Ronnie’s father, in true Cinema Paradiso fashion, worked as a film projectionist in Negros Occidental. He remembers, in the darkness of their basement, peering with flashlights into discarded film strips. You’d think that he writes “Ronaldo” or “Ronald” when filling out forms. No. “Ronnie,” in fact, is his legal first name, and, yes, his mother was a huge FPJ fan. But only recently, he went to the National Statistics Office and found out a strange name on his birth certificate: “Lemuel,” a mistake neither he nor his parents could explain. “Kaya pala parang ang gulo-gulo ng buhay ko eh,” he laughs. “Buong buhay ko, maling pangalang ginagamit ko.”

The place is called Fabrica, famous for being the site of the Insular Lumber Company, then the world’s biggest sawmill and lumber corporation. Because of the presence of American business, the town enjoyed a kind of development and industrialization unknown to other parts of the Philippines. Growing up, Ronnie remembers waking up to the sound of U.S. airplanes. Fabrica had what was considered one of the first modern hospitals in the country. On afternoons, the young Ronnie and his friends would wait and filch sugarcanes from trucks (“Makes your teeth strong”) and trainloads of timber for barks to be burned for firewood. “We enjoyed hunting in the forest for birds and spiders,” he says. If he could play one piece of music for his funeral, it would be the sound of sugar cane leaves rustling in the wind—an image that refuses to leave his memory. “In fact, that’s the opening scene for the movie I’m still directing in my mind.”

He also fondly remembers his one and only dog, Spartan—“na kinain nila when I left. I never had any pets after.”

But Fabrica also distinguished itself for having two movie houses, the Vista and the Ilco. Ronnie remembers seeing his earliest films: karate flicks by Roberto Gonzales, Tony Ferrer, and Godzilla Versus Mothra. These were mostly double-widths (for the benefit of the ignorant mall generation: movies shown back to back) with the intermissions devoted to public-service announcements (i.e. “Boy Timo, your mother is looking for you. Go home”). He also recalls how aetas would descend from the hills to camp inside the theaters from morning till closing, with their baon of fish and rice. The young Ronnie, too, would bring his own snack of peanuts in a newspaper cone. In that same theater, show biz luminaries like Pilita Corales also performed.

He also remembers the first time he knew his future lay somewhere in acting when he heard Nora Aunor being interviewed on the radio. “I was inside my mosquito net. I thought I wanted that kind of adulation, too.” He did not get the same swooning multitudes, but his fan base came in the form of critics, cineastes, and knowledgeable industry people who recognize good work when they see it.

Like most great actors, Ronnie Lazaro traces his roots in theater. As a student at La Salle Bacolod, he became actively involved in campus theater. If it was any indication, the character he portrayed in his very first play, Ang Manogpatigayon, was a sign of things to come: an old man. Singing was his other interest, and he joined the school’s glee club that even performed at the CCP under the direction of Joel Navarro (the smooth baritone behind the Metropop classic “Suwerte-suwerte Lang”).

In that stage troupe, he met Peque Gallaga, the man who would usher him into the world of theater and cinema. Peque directed, among many others, the school’s production of The King and I where Ronnie played Lun Tha.
For the record, Ronnie Lazaro holds a degree in Accounting from La Salle Bacolod. “Nabawasan lang ng letters,” he chuckles. “‘A-C-C-O-U-N-T-I-N-G’ naging ‘A-C-T-I-N-G’!” But right from the start, he knew he didn’t want a nine-to-five office job—although his first gigs after graduation included being a funeral parlor agent and a quality inspector for the National Grains Authority.
His very first job in the movies, however, was in the field of production design under the Gallaga crew. He was a props man in Ishmael Bernal’s Girlfriend, which starred Matt Ranillo III and Cherie Gil. “Now I’m working with Matt. Sabi ko sa kanya, ‘Matt, propsman mo ako dati.’ He doesn’t remember,” Ronnie chuckles.

He became involved in Ishmael Bernal’s classic City After Dark, but as art director. He was supposed to appear but “I was edited out. The scene was shot in Luneta around two or three in the morning, and I was singing a Neil Young song. Come to think of it, it wasn’t really an important scene.” But one unforgettable experience as art director of that film was figuring out a way to shanghai a smashed-up car from Quezon City all the way to F.B. Harrison in Pasay.
Ronnie, however, reminisces over the job without much fondness. “To begin with, it wasn’t really the kind of work I wanted. Ang hirap, pare. Pag PD ka, you’re the first to arrive and the last to leave.” This was a phase in his life where he was still unsure of what to do, sleepwalking from project to project. “Zombie” was the word he repeatedly used to describe those days. “Zombie ako noon.”

“All actors are taught how to enter into a character, but not to get out. There’s a serious danger in the actor bringing home the character with him—tangay-tangay mo ‘yan hanggang bahay.“

He was finally able to appear in a Bernal opus: in Bilibid Boys, as the bastonero who discovers the dead body of William Martinez. He vividly remembers that shoot in 1980: it was the day Mark Chapman shot John Lennon. “It was so easy to cry.”

His first acting job, however, was in Lino Brocka’s Gumising Ka, Maruja, where he appeared with Joel Torre. (“Joel was an inspiration. He started way ahead of me in theater.”) A little-known fact: Ronnie also had an apprenticeship in comedy as part of the cast (Repertory Philippines biggies like Subas Herrero, Noel Trinidad, et al) of Champoy, which aired on RPN 9 in the early 80s.

But he would get his first major break in Oro, Plata, Mata—Peque Gallaga’s sweeping epic about an aristocratic Negros family caught in the snares of WWII. It saw a dark and scrawny Ronnie who, early in the movie, takes off his clothes and jumps into a river completely naked. But beyond that graphic little stunt, Ronnie managed to pit his acting chops against a formidable ensemble: Joel, Sandy Andolong, Cherie Gil, Mitch Valdes. Critic Isagani Cruz cited his performance here as “the longest and most complex supporting role.” This was one of his finest moments, among the most memorable debuts in the business, in what is unquestionably one of the greatest Filipino films of all time.

Support, yes, but as the young guerilla Hermes rendered mute by a wound in the mouth, Ronnie’s performance can be considered a masterclass in expression and range. (Watch that delightfully gory scene where Maya Valdez, the doctor, sews up his tongue and he’s almost choking in his own blood—they don’t do production design like this anymore, damnit.) Throughout the film, Ronnie is a wordless but complex presence, conveying rage, lust, and vulnerability, the sheer agony of a brash, impulsive youth who has suddenly lost the capacity for speech. Unforgettable moments: that outburst of violence in that waterfall sequence where he recklessly pursues a Japanese straggler down a waterfall and rips his face out—made all the more chilling by the hint of orgasm on Ronnie’s own face; that awkward erotic encounter where he deflowers Cherie Gil; and when he tries to speak, but upon realizing the futility, breaks into sobs with strains of a lullaby floating from the darkness outside.

After Oro, he appeared in another E.C.P. classic, Abbo dela Cruz’s Misteryo sa Tuwa (1984), which contains an ear-slicing scene that predates Reservoir Dogs by eight years. It was followed by his first-ever starring role, Boatman (1984), an art-house skin flick that made him (in)famous. Described by one critic as both “fascinating and repulsive,” it is the tale of Felipe, a boatman forced by poverty to perform toro (live sex acts) with his live-in partner played by Sarsi Emmanuel, back then one of the biggest sexy stars in the biz (how she eventually ended up selling tickets at a Fairview karnabal deserves its own Rogue reportage). Wrote the reviewer Emmanuel A. Reyes: “Ronnie Lazaro, perhaps the personification of the Tiktik macho, is effective as the corrupted boatman,” a statement that is both complimentary and pointed—Tiktik being a popular Pinoy porn mag in the 80s. His preparations for the role might sound alien to a generation of artistas spoiled by big-network P.R. and product endorsements: Ronnie lived with the boatmen of Pagsanjan, Laguna for a month, learned to row, and drank gin with them, adopting a physical fitness routine involving an improvised cement barbell and an iron bar for pull-ups. Of course, today’s hearthrobs just peek at the script while driving straight to Gold’s Gym in their Audi convertibles.

He may have received an Urian Best Actor nomination for his performance—against Jay Ilagan (Soltero, Sister Stella L), Philip Salvador (Baby Tsina), and Tommy Abuel (Bukas, May Pangarap). But Boatman is one film Ronnie remains uncomfortable discussing. And it is no small level of discomfort. The first time I met Ronnie two years ago, I brought up the subject of said movie and was met only with a polite chuckle, dismissed by, “Pinatawad ko na sila.”

The same movie that catapulted him to, uh, fame was the same movie that, Ronnie insists, dealt him severe emotional trauma. Ronnie Lazaro, the star of the show, did not even attend the premiere. While he does recognize its value
(“Isang malaking bagay sa akin yun”),“People didn’t realize how much it affected me as a person and as an actor,” he says. “Natatakot pa rin nga ako na baka ipalabas ulit at mapanood ng anak ko.”

That entire phase, he says, was one marked by a sense of anger and confusion. He would invoke that term again: zombie. “I blame them, but at the same time, I blame myself, because I didn’t know what I was getting into. It was a tough role. Then again, I was given the assignment, so I had to do it.” But he insists that during that point, he was “at a crossroads, spiritually.”

At that time, Ronnie was into punk, too. “Punk-rocker Ronnie Lazaro, looking like Sid Vicious with earrings, safety pins, black torn T-shirt and all, became a regular pilgrim,” Ige Ramos remembers in a Flip magazine article on the legendary Penguin Cafe. Ronnie was a big fan of The Police, and even fronted a band called Glass, which played at legendary venues like On Disco and Tavern at the Square. But he also realized that punk insolence had no room in Philippine show biz. “Naging black sheep ako noon after a magazine interview came out. Lu-mabas ako sa Waway,” he says, referring to the 80s Rudy Fernandez hit directed by Manuel “Fyke” Cinco. “Sinabi ko, ‘Hindi naman art ang
Waway eh.’ Tapos may sinabi ako na parang, ‘Fuck showbiz.’ Putsa, wala nang kumuha.”

In the mid-80s, his Oro, Plata, Mata co-star Mitch Valdes encouraged him to attend the one seminar that totally altered his attitude towards life. It was a workshop called Reach for Inner Self. “It was a cleansing process. Others would call it a ‘science of the mind.’ It’s about finding your self, loving your self. Because some people don’t want to let go of a certain state of thinking. I felt I was already becoming too self-destructive at that time. Then I learned to forgive . . . to forgive others and to forgive myself. After that, that’s when I began enjoying my craft.”

When deployed, these eyes become watery, tragic, exhausted, tormented, piercing, ecstatic, saintly. Eyes that have seen something either so horrible or something so unspeakably beautiful.

In real life, the aforementioned paragraph does not reek of the insufferable New Age balderdash spewed by former druggies/alcoholics-suddenly-turned-religious-therefore-self-righteous. Because, thankfully, Ronnie Lazaro has a wonderful sense of humor and takes himself seriously only upon the imperative, “Action!” With beer, tequila, and an assortment of charbroiled things, he makes excellent company; he calls everyone “bro,” an engaging storyteller punctuating his anecdotes with an infuriating, almost wheezing laugher that sounds something like “ugh, ugh, ugh.” Yes, he drinks—prodigiously, when the occasion requires—and enjoys it, too, bringing to the table none of his martyred, pitiful celluloid alter-egos. Best of all is his comfortable sense of awareness of his place in the cinema food chain. Yes, he may be one of our best actors, but he suffers no delusions of grandeur.

He has been happily married for 12 years to a genial Spanish lady named Dolores, also known to everyone else as Lola, a teacher at the Instituto Cervantes Manila. Ronnie regards their son Gabriel as “God’s greatest gift.” Gabriel, a handsome, energetic, and polite boy who shares school-time between Manila and Spain, calls him neither “papa” nor “daddy.” He calls him “Ronnie” (The only other similar relationship it calls to mind is that of Bart and Homer Simpson). His wife—not exactly a huge follower of Philippine primetime TV—prefers watching him on stage. “It’s like seeing a totally different person,” Lola says, a comment that would make Ronnie kilig to no end.

It’s not exactly a completely spotless filmography. He has done projects like Delia Maga and Lipa Massacre, both directed by Carlo J. Caparas—not exactly the role model of many young auteurs. “Survival. Those were hard times. There was no work.” He’s also done American B-movies like Braddock: Missing in Action (as a Japanese officer) and Delta Force II. “Kasama ko dun si Billy Drago, yung sa Untouchables. May eksena dun na sasaksakin niya ako. Eh hindi nag-retract yung knife. Napa-aray ako!.” Never did the word “cut!” ring with so much irony from the director’s mouth.

Fortunately, the late ‘90s saw Ronnie getting better projects—less Caparas, more Marilou Diaz-Abaya, Lav Diaz, and the brothers Red, plus a smattering of independent titles. For Diaz-Abaya, he played interesting characters in three films: Sa Pusod ng Dagat, the very expensive Jose Rizal as the martyr’s father Paciano, and as a Muslim datu who turns huramentado in Bagong Buwan. Three for Lav: Hesus Rebolusyonaryo, Hubad sa Ilalim ng Buwan, Ebolusyon, and the work-in-progress Heremias currently clocking in at 10 hours. For Jon Red, he did Utang ni Tatang, Astig, and Boso. But it was Raymond Red’s Anino that would take him to Cannes in 2000, where it won the Palme d’Or in the short film category, and saw Ronnie in a barong, running down the aisle and shouting “Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!” All the while, the TV offers were equally continuous. He appeared in T.G.I.S, Esperanza, Kay Tagal Kang Hinintay, among others, plus fantasy-adventure series like Kristala, Rounin, and Atlantika.

Several months after our interview, Ronnie flew to Egypt for the Cairo Film Festival where Ataul for Rent, his latest, was shown. Here, as in Cesar Montano’s Panaghoy sa Sugba, he plays—what else—a taong grasa.

Good thing cinema—with its unpredictable directional winds—is merely one of Ronnie’s wide-ranging interests that include poetry-readings, dance-dramas, music, performance art, and photography. His love for the camera was fostered at an early age by his uncle, a professional photographer who clicked on Fabrica citizens’ special moments: birthdays, baptisms, etc. Ronnie the lensman did more: last year he was able to exhibit his works at two museums in Spain.

His other enduring passion, of course, is theater and his forays are regular. As of this writing he is rehearsing for another run of the late Rene Villanueva’s acclaimed play, Hiblang Abo, a rather bleak story set in a home for the aged. Some of the most seasoned actors are cast: Bodjie Pascua, Lou Veloso, Crispin Pineda. Before that, he did Bakeretta (Ghost Operetta) at the CCP and Rody Vera’s stage adaptation of F. Sionil Jose’s Mass. Others plays include Oraciones, Pinoy Agonistes, Piglas, Ulo ni Pancho Villa, Tatlong Parusa Isang Sentensiya, Neo Filipino, Ang Propeta, Chekhov’s Seagull, And St. Louis Loves Dem Filipinos, Katipunan, Kanser, San Lorenzo Ruiz, Martir sa Golgota, Munting Prinsipe, Bien Aliktad, among others. Occasionally you’ll see him spontaneously bursting into verse at an art event, or singing Sting’s “Shape of My Heart” at a celebrity karaoke. But as a piece of performance art, nothing comes close to the one he did back in the 90s: cleaning up the Luneta relief map, with only a few friends to help, using only crude implements. This was no mere janitorial exercise; like the most convincing performance pieces, it was grounded in metaphor—a symbolic purging of an archipelago mired in filth and bureaucratic neglect. The feat, completed in seven days, largely went unpublicized save for bits of video documentation.

Ronnie is also active in socio-civic work. He is one of the initiators of the Artists’ Welfare Movement, which seeks to raise financial support to those working in the creative disciplines. (He has very strong feelings about equity, and after toiling gratis in many of these sort of projects in the past, now feels indie directors should compensate their actors fairly.) Ronnie is also a founding member of the artists’ collective Dakila, which replicated his Luneta relief-map cleanup in 2005 and 2006 under the concept of “Linisin ang Pilipinas,” this time with hundreds of people armed with brushes, mops, and paint.

Depending on the level of alcohol consumption and the company, Ronnie Lazaro—who turned 50 on November 2006—can wax philosophical on the craft, i.e. “My experience with acting has nothing to do with glamour. I had so many questions about life when I was young. When I did theater, many of those questions were answered.” He drops one of those quotes that only actors understand: “Acting is self-discovery.” (I, not an actor, merely believe Laurence Olivier’s advice to a young Dustin Hoffman who systematically starved and exhausted himself preparing for his role in Marathon Man: “Have you ever tried acting?”)

Is it an inherently paradoxical phrase: the realization of “self” by inhabiting a totally different persona? “Well, you can’t play other people unless you understand yourself first. In acting, your only tool is your own self. It’s a ‘soul’ thing.
Truth is very important. You have to find truth in what you do. When you understand the self, you understand the world.”

This notion of acting goes beyond mere “pretending” and thus approximates the level of “being.” But he warns of the hazards: “All actors are taught how to enter into a character, but not to get out. There’s a serious danger in the actor bringing home the character with him—tangay-tangay mo ‘yan hanggang bahay. Not everyone has that sense of self-understanding. Kaya minsan, maraming nasisirang marriage at pamilya. You end up being the character. It’s automatic. Look at the stunt men, the goons who dress up ‘macho.’ Look at married couples—they start looking like each other. Osmosis, yan eh.”

Which brings to mind some of the tragic personas in Pinoy show biz, everyone from Nora Aunor to the late Ace Vergel—lives ensnared in that unobstructed traffic between genius and self-loathing, between reality and fiction. Ronnie Lazaro lives in the exuberant Now. “In the movies, they always try to kill me,” chuckles Ronnie. “Buti na lang pangalan ko ‘Lazaro.’”